The current and former Human Rights Ombudsmen of the Republic of Artsakh Artak Beglaryan and Ruben Melikyan, on the march 6th, took part in the conference at the European Parliament titled “Armenophobia: historical and present-day resurgence,” which was organized by the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy and the Tufenkian Foundation supported by member of the European Parliament Dr. Eleni Theocharous.
In his speech, A. Beglaryan presented especially the military direction of Armenophobia emphasizing that in recent decade it was expressed in a very salient way during military operations in 2016 April war. He presented war crimes and other atrocities against Armenian military servicemen and civilians, as well as the use of prohibited weapons and methods by the Azerbaijani armed forces.
The Ombudsman emphasized that recorded massive and brutal violations of human rights have been largely derived from the continuing anti-Armenian policy and ideology in which killing of any Armenian is considered to be a model behavior by the Azerbaijani state. The factual glorification of Ramil Safarov and the rewards of military servicemen who committed war crimes, and many other official statements and actions are the best evidence of this. He also emphasized that the Armenophobic state policy not only continually violates and endangers a number of fundamental rights of Armenians of Artsakh, but also any progress in conflict settlement process practically becomes impossible.
Former Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh Ruben Melikyan touched upon the examples of Azerbaijan’s Armenophobia policy in the educational and informational spheres, presenting their systemic and lasting nature. He drew attention particularly to the fact, that the information field presents short-term moods, and Armenophobia in the educational system predetermines the mentality of future generations which means that long-lasting tendancies are not positive.
The conference was also attended by Turkish human rights activist Ragip Zarakolu, Jewish blogger Alexander Lapshin and Polish Armenologist Yakob Osiecki.
Artak Beglaryan’s presentation can be found here in pptx format, and watch conference in live here.
The Human Rights Defender’s report about violations during military operations on April 2016 can be found here and the report on the Armenophobia policy in Azerbaijan can be found here.
The Human Rights Defender’s Staff of the Artsakh Republic